WHAT:
A special opportunity for the media to see and photograph original milestone documents related to the struggle for equal rights among all Americans.

WHEN:
Thursday, July 9, 2009, from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.

WHERE:
National Archives at Atlanta
5780 Jonesboro Road
Morrow, GA 30260

Directions: I-75 South to Exit 233, Morrow. Make a left onto Georgia highway 54/Jonesboro Road and proceed approximately one mile past the main entrance to Clayton State University. The National Archives is on the right just past the entrance to Clayton State.

July 9^th marks the anniversary of the ratification of the 14^th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. The major provision of the 14^th amendment was to grant citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to former slaves.

Drawn from the holdings of the 13 regional National Archives facilities coast to coast, the exhibit presents records that give voice to the national struggle for human and civil rights. It features more than 80 documents, facsimiles, images and sound recordings, including:

• Selected documents from all five court cases that comprised Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that ended school segregation--exhibited for the first time together;
• Court records of the schooner Amistad, that tell the story of 53 Africans who resisted enslavement, overpowered the ship’s captain and were found off the coast of Long Island;
• Court records from San Francisco in the 1890s chronicling the citizenship odyssey of San Francisco-born Wong Kim Ark;
• The official logbook recording the WWII evacuation and relocation of Aleuts in Alaska;
• Court records reflecting the efforts of white residents of Koinonia Farms, Georgia, to overcome various forms of discrimination;
• An early Montgomery Improvement Association booklet by Martin Luther King, Jr.; and
• A court martial order for Second Lt. Jackie Robinson who refused to move to the back of the bus on a military post. (See attachment)

The exhibition is free and open to the public at the National Archives at Atlanta, 5780 Jonesboro Road, Morrow, Georgia. The facility hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Call 770-968-2100 for more information or see http://www.archives.gov/southeast

For more information, contact Mary Evelyn Tomlin at 770-968-2555